Teaching Traditional and Experiential Hawaiian Farming Practices

My internship with Ulu Mau Puanui radically furthered my passion for local and community-centered farming efforts. As a research and education-based farm, Ulu Mau Puanui hosts groups of students from all over the world and involves them in both traditional and experiential Hawaiian farming practices. Bringing together Indigenous knowledge frameworks, decades of soil sampling, and archaeological research, Ulu Mau Puanui strives to use culturally-driven science to understand how Hawaiians sustained rain-fed (unirrigated) intensive farming for centuries. Such work is crucial to inform our current efforts to live sustainably, especially as global food security is challenged by climate change.

During my internship I worked with students middle school through college age, prompting them to think about their relationships with food and to be conscientious travelers and stewards of the ʻāina (land). I developed a digital StoryMap outlining Ulu Mau Puanui’s vision, and continued expanding my network of relationships with Hawaiʻi Island’s conservation community. This summer animated and solidified my desire to continue bridging cultural and environmental fields, acknowledging both their struggles and revitalization as inherently interconnected.​

Internship funded by the McKinley, Thomas & Hannah, Scholarship & Entrepreneur Grant​.